A Los Angeles pastor has opened his church doors to asylum seekers at a time when many are being released from federal custody with nowhere to go and without a job lined up. <\/p>\n
Pastor Ren\u00e9 Molina has quietly built a support system at Resurrection Los Angeles in the West Adams neighborhood, offering shelter and community to immigrants who are navigating the legal process to stay in the U.S. <\/p>\n
Even as asylum seekers go through the legal process, many fear that could be targeted by ICE. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to create a map of safe places for people that are really in vulnerable spots,” Molina told NBC Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
With help from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights — and volunteers and donations — many in need are connected to Molina’s church for temporary shelter while they figure out their next steps. <\/p>\n
Over the past three years, about 10 families from all over the world, including Mexico, Africa and Europe, have stayed at the church or at other church-run properties. <\/p>\n
While the number may seem small, Molina said the impact is life-changing. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, its not really about numbers. It’s what impact are we making on peoples lives,” he said. <\/p>\n
Molina said his congregation, largely immigrants or children of immigrants, is politically diverse but united by shared experience and calling. <\/p>\n
“Our community is very purple,” Molina said. “For us, it’s consistency on our basic values which is justice, compassion and humility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pastor said there are concerns about possible political backlash, but his church community remains committed to helping those in need. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles pastor has opened his church doors to asylum seekers at a time when many are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14,48,52,51,47,50,49,5835],"class_list":{"0":"post-271665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-immigration","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-west-adams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}